Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel (54 page)

“Who stabbed him?” I whispered.

“We did.” He pointed from himself to the familiar dark-haired guard beside him. “I expect we’ll both be amply rewarded.”

I felt sick to my stomach. Suddenly, nothing made sense anymore. When I returned to Octavia’s villa, I shut myself in my room. Charmion, Ptolemy, Caesarion, Antyllus, Alexander, both of my parents. And now Juba; the man who had cared for me all along, protecting me, writing about the injustices I cared passionately about as well, all in the guise of the Red Eagle. It no longer mattered to me whether I lived or died. I lay down and closed my eyes, hoping that someone would steal out of the shadows as they had four months before, only this time, that it would be my life that ended.

But when I awoke, the sun was still high. No one had come to murder me in my sleep. There was noise in the atrium, and when I
opened the door, Octavia and Vitruvius were whispering. They stopped when I appeared, and both of them looked at me.

Octavia approached. Her face was full of concern. “Augustus would like to see you,” she said.

“Really?” I asked indifferently. “Is he angry?”

“I don’t know. He is very ill, Selene. And preparations are being made….”

I could see she was on the verge of tears, and I softened my voice. “He has always recovered.”

“But this time it’s fever. He’s asked us to bring you.”

When I nodded, she released her breath. She had expected a fight, but I no longer cared what happened to me. I followed her into Augustus’s villa, where dignitaries crowded together in the atrium, and even Julia and Marcellus were there.

“He’s asked to see you,” Julia said nervously. “Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

“I think you’re going to be married.” When I didn’t react, she went on fretfully, “No one knows who it is. I don’t think even Livia knows. But he’s making all his plans. He’s even given Agrippa his signet ring.”

“The one belonging to Alexander the Great?”

She nodded.

“So Agrippa’s his heir?”

“Until Marcellus is twenty.” I could see the fear in her eyes. “Oh, Selene.” She took my hands, but I didn’t move. “Whatever happens, I am here. It will be all right.”

Octavia guided me to the stairs and pointed upward. “The first door on the right.”

I mounted the steps, and as I approached the door, I was aware of a rushing sound in my ears. But why was I afraid? It didn’t matter what future Augustus decided for me now.

I opened the door and realized that I wasn’t entering a chamber,
but Augustus’s office, Little Syracuse. The walls were adorned with maps and scrolls, and where there weren’t books, there were statues. A pale-looking Augustus was seated behind his table, hunched over like an old man trying to fend off the cold. With his hand, he offered me a seat.

“Kleopatra Selene,” he said.

“Emperor Augustus.”

He smiled at the title, but didn’t disagree. “Do you know why I’ve called you here?”

I didn’t lie. “Julia says it has something to do with my marriage.”

“Yes.” He studied me. “You’ve grown very beautiful in my absence.”

“Many things have happened in your absence,” I said shortly.

He raised his brows, but instead of growing angry with me, his voice became strangely regretful. “Yes, they have. And once we die, what we leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

“Pericles.”

He nodded. “And I have not woven much happiness into your life, have I?”

I dug my nails into my palms to keep myself from weeping.

“Before I die, I wish to change that, Selene.”

“Are you going to bring Alexander back from the dead?”

He hesitated. “You understand, I hope, that a grown son of Marc Antony and Kleopatra would always be a risk to the stability of Rome so long as he was alive.”

“The stability of Rome, or the stability of your rule?”

“Is there a difference?”

“He never wanted to be Caesar!”

“Many men have no intention of being Caesar. But when offered the opportunity by discontented senators, how many would turn it down?”

I bit my lower lip.

“I did not bring you here to discuss death,” he said quietly. “I brought you here to give you a new life. You had a very fine education in Egypt, and in Rome you have proven yourself capable of rule. If you will accept a dowry of five thousand denarii,” he began, “I wish to make you Queen of Mauretania.”

The study began to spin so quickly that I gripped the sides of my chair. “I don’t understand,” I whispered. “I thought that Juba—”

“Is ill? Yes, but he’s young and very strong. Men like him recover quickly, and he’s waiting for you in the other room.”

I stood so quickly that my seat nearly toppled over.

Augustus smiled. “At the end of the hall.”

I don’t remember whether I ran. I must have, because when I opened the door and Juba took me in his arms, I was breathless. Immediately, I inspected him for signs that he’d been wounded again. “I don’t understand,” was all I could say. “I don’t—”

He put his finger to my lips. “The men at the temple were mine. There was no attack.”

“But the mess—” I whispered.

“It was bull’s blood. I think I’m going to survive.”

“And your shoulder?”

He pushed his tunic away so I could see where Magister Verrius had neatly stitched him closed, and in the bright light of the chamber, I knew there’d never been a more beautiful man. From the time I’d been taken from Alexandria, he must have known that Augustus had intended me for him. Then I thought of the times he’d seen me weeping for Marcellus, and the many times I’d goaded him for being nasty when all of it had simply been an act to keep away suspicion, and my eyes began to burn.

“I hope you’re crying with happiness,” he said, “and not with disappointment.”

“How could I be disappointed?” I cried.

“Perhaps you wanted someone else.”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “No.” I searched his eyes, which were filled with kindness, and I drew my fingers over the handsome contours of his face. “I want you.”

“Me, or the Red Eagle?” he asked cautiously.

“Perhaps both.”

“But you know that the Red Eagle is gone,” he said. “I’ve done what I can in Rome. Someone else must continue the fight.”

“Like Gallia?”

“And Verrius, and many other good people. But Augustus would have suspected it was me eventually. So I’m afraid your Red Eagle is dead,” he said with regret.

“Dead?” I asked him. “Or just flown away to Mauretania?” When he didn’t say anything, I added, “I suspect it’s the latter.”

“There will be no more rebellion. No more daring acts of kindness,” he warned.

“You mean we won’t get to run through burning buildings?” I could see he wanted to laugh, but instead he watched me intently. “What? Why are you staring at me?”

“I’m not staring. I’m observing.”

I smiled through my tears. “And what do you observe?”

He brushed his lips against my ear. “A brave young woman who has always fought for what was right, even when it was unpopular. A woman who can’t return to the land of her birth, but is welcome to cross the seas and rebuild Alexandria in mine. And a woman who has suffered enough in Rome and deserves happiness for a change. Will you come to Mauretania and be my queen?”

He drew back to look at me, but I held him closer. “Yes.”

“Just yes?”

I nodded and pressed my lips against his.

A
FTERWORD

Selene

Selene and Juba were married in 25 BC, and, true to his word, Augustus gave Selene a magnificent dowry. The union of Kleopatra Selene and Juba II became one of the greatest love stories ever to come out of imperial Rome, and for twenty years they reigned side by side in an extraordinary partnership that began on the voyage to Mauretania. When they reached their new kingdom, they settled in Iol, renaming it Caesarea in deference to the man who had made them king and queen. Once this public declaration of loyalty was made, however, Selene began rebuilding their capital in the image of the greatest city on earth: Alexandria. Before long, their court became known as a center for learning, and the images that archaeologists have discovered at Caesarea (such as a basalt statue of the Egyptian priest Petubastes IV, a bronze bust of Dionysus, and a statue of Tuthmosis I), speak loudest about Selene’s true loyalties.

While Selene erected monuments in honor of her Ptolemaic heritage, Juba charted the lands around his new kingdom. In the process
he was credited as being the first person to “discover” the Canary Islands, naming them Insularia Canaria, or Islands of the Dogs, after the fierce canines that inhabited them. He also penned the treatise
Libyka
and discovered an important type of medicinal spurge, which even today is called
Euphorbia regis-jubae
. Pliny wrote that Juba was “more remembered for the quality of his scholarship even than for his reign,” while Plutarch considered him one of the “most gifted rulers of his time.” Two, or possibly three, children were born to Juba and Selene during their marriage. Their son Ptolemy inherited the throne.

Augustus

Despite his grave sickness, Augustus recovered and ruled for another thirty-nine years. Nearly everyone he loved passed on before him, including Terentilla, Agrippa, Maecenas, Octavia, and even Marcellus. At seventy-five, when it was clear that the end was approaching, he asked Livia to take his life by surprise. He wished to orchestrate his death just as he had orchestrated everything else. When Livia poisoned his food, Augustus died in AD 14. He left behind explicit instructions on how to govern Rome, even going so far as to describe the tax system in minute detail. His heir was Livia’s son, Tiberius.

Julia

Julia and Marcellus enjoyed their wedded bliss for only another two years. In 23 BC, Marcellus died suddenly, ending a brief life that would likely have seen him as emperor had he survived. He was buried in Augustus’s mausoleum, which can still be seen today in Rome. With no clear heir, Augustus ordered Agrippa’s immediate divorce from Octavia’s daughter Claudia, and the eighteen-year-old
Julia was given to her father’s forty-two-year-old general and closest friend. Five children resulted from their marriage, but when Agrippa died in 12 BC, Julia became a widow again. This time, with fewer heirs to choose from, Augustus married Julia to her stepbrother Tiberius. But Julia rebelled, taking as her lover Selene’s half brother Antonius, the son of Marc Antony and Fulvia. When Augustus discovered this, he arrested his own daughter for adultery and treason. Antonius, like his father, was forced to commit suicide, and Julia was banished to the island of Pandataria. Only her mother accompanied her into exile, where they were forbidden from having visitors other than those specifically sent by her father. After five years, Julia was allowed to return to the mainland, though she was forbidden from entering Rome. Upon Augustus’s death, one of Tiberius’s first acts was to confine Julia to a single room in her house. She died of starvation.

Tiberius

Before becoming heir to the Roman Empire, Tiberius was ordered to marry Agrippa’s daughter Vipsania. Their marriage proved to be an actual love match, and for seven years they remained loyal partners, producing a son whom Tiberius named Drusus, after his own younger brother. But when Agrippa died in 12 BC, Augustus ordered Tiberius to divorce his pregnant wife and marry Julia. The shock caused the loss of Vipsania’s second child, but the divorce proceeded, and Tiberius never forgave Augustus. In the years to come, Tiberius haunted Vipsania’s doorstep, threatening her new husband, Gallus, with death. After several more encounters, Augustus forbade Tiberius from ever seeing Vipsania again. Upon becoming emperor, Tiberius declared Vipsania’s husband a public enemy, imprisoning him and killing him by starvation. After Julia’s death, he never
remarried. Jesus of Nazareth is believed to have been crucified during the reign of Tiberius, which lasted twenty-three years.

Octavia

After the sudden and devastating death of Marcellus, Octavia retired from public life, spending her time quietly doing charity work and raising her grandchildren. Her daughter Antonia married the renowned charioteer Lucius Domitius. Although the marriage was a deeply unhappy one, it produced three children, one of whom, Antonia, would become the grandmother of Emperor Nero. Octavia’s youngest daughter, Tonia, married Livia’s son Drusus, and the two of them enjoyed a happy marriage for nearly seven years until Drusus died in a riding accident. Their children were the famous general Germanicus, the beautiful Livilla, and the future emperor Claudius.

H
ISTORICAL
N
OTE